Page Content (OCR)
341 delays. In Lagash, "mother Bau wept bitterly for her holy temple, for her city." Though Ninurtu was gone, his spouse could not force herself to leave. Lingering behind. "O my city. O my city." she kept crying; the delay almost cost her her life: On that day, the lady— the storm caught up with her; Bau, as if she were mortal— In Ur we learn from the lamentations (one of which was com- posed by Ningal herself) that Nannar and Ningal refused to be- lieve that the end of Ur was irrevocable. Nannar addressed a long and emotional appeal to his father Enlil, seeking some means to avert the calamity. But "Enlil answered his son Sin" that the fate could not be changed: Ur was granted kingship- it was not granted an eternal reign. Since days of yore, when Sumer was founded, to the present, when people have multiplied— Who has ever seen a kingship of everlasting reign? While the appeals were made, Ningal recalled in her long poem, "the storm was ever breaking forward, its howling overpowering all." It was daytime when the Evil Wind approached Ur: "al- though of that day I still tremble," Ningal wrote, "of that day's foul smell we did not flee." As night came, "a bitter lament was raised" in Ur; yet the god and goddess stayed on; "of that night's foulness we did not flee," the goddess stated. Then the affliction reached the great ziggurat of Ur, and Ningal realized that Nannar "had been overtaken by the evil storm." Ningal and Nannar spent a night of nightmare, which Ningal vowed never to forget, in the "termite house" (underground chamber) within the ziggurat. Only next day. when "the storm was carried off from the city." did "Ningal, in order to go from her city . hastily put on a garment," and together with the stricken Nannar departed from the city they so loved. As they were leaving they saw death and desolation: "the peo- ple, like potsherds, filled the city's streets; in its lofty gates, where they were wont to promenade, dead bodies were lying about; in its boulevards, where the feasts were celebrated, scattered they lay; in The Nuclear Holocaust the storm caught up with her. . .